This Week in AI✓

Sam Altman’s AI predictions rely on a vision for “recursive self improvement” that does not yet exist, at least not publicly. On TWiAI 36, the panel considers whether or not one frontier lab really could run away with the entire AI game, or if Altman’s “3 pathways forward for AI” prediction rests on a faulty premise? Are the major labs talking about regulation so much because they’ve seen what kinds of models are coming next? Or just because regulation is good for whoever gets out to an early lead? Expert panelists Jaleh Rezaei (Mutiny) and Alex Cheema (EXO Labs) join Jason and Lon for a brand-new This Week in AI. @jason, @jalehr, @alexocheema, @lons, @mutinycorp, @exolabs 0:00 Cold Open / Show Intro 0:58 PayPal - Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at 2:56 How much hardware it takes to run local AI models 4:32 DHS orders DeepSeek out of federal systems 5:53 Why enterprise clients are uneasy about Chinese models 9:47 Could an open-source model "phone home" to Beijing? 14:10 Why enterprises are much more price sensitive about AI tools 16:39 Are Sam Altman's AI endgame theories "deranged"? 25:45 Why the major labs want more regulations 26:28 The ElevenLabs Archer controversy continues 34:30 Who actually owns the rights to your voice? 45:17 "Substack for AI Models" 46:20 China needs more chips than Nvidia can make 52:40 Are enterprises running more local models? 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇

TWiAI Episode Droppedd! We had the honor of having @jalehr of @MutinyCorp for today’s roundtable! Four months after scrapping her $72M-backed SaaS product, Mutiny’s revenue was growing 188% week-over-week, 12x faster than its original launch. Catch the full episode - link in the comments.

What an amazing episode out today with @alexocheema of EXO Labs for today’s AI roundtable! His open-source project EXO runs DeepSeek’s 671B-parameter model on four Mac Studios, and it has around 45K stars on GitHub. The data center might be sitting on your desk. Come tune in, full episode link in comments.

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This will be an incredible interview. Tune in:

We’re going LIVE in 15 minutes with @shishirmehrotra, CEO of @Superhuman! Tune in at 11 AM Central. Live links to watch in comments.

AI labs are timing their IPO’s with singularity talk. AI risk or IPO marketing? @gsivulka : “I think it’s hard for everyone to determine whether or not this is a marketing tactic or a marketing stunt… Or if there is real risk.” “The general public has a very kind of like naive, idea of how this might impact their lives and how it might kill everyone.” @Jason @Lons

What if there was an algorithm built for you to be LifeMaxxing? @jason: “What if the algorithm was suddenly designed by some incredibly anti-narcissistic, empathetic, deep person who said you know what the purpose of my… company is to build an algorithm for you in the real world, to experience joy, and to be challenged and be fulfilled in life.” @Lons @gsivulka @deepgramscott @mishindan1

What an amazing interview with @jmorgan, Co-Founder & CEO of @ollama! 8.9M developers use Ollama every month, and today we asked Jeff why Fortune 500 companies are quietly switching to open models. Come break it down with us. Link in comments.

Big companies are worried that the frontier labs they rent compute from today could launch the products that compete with them tomorrow. It’s a big reason so many of them now run open models on their own devices. Jeffrey Morgan of Ollama joins Jason to discuss that shift, the million-dollar AI bills nobody can explain, and his bet that most everyday AI work will soon happen right on your desk. @jason @jmorgan @ollama 0:43 PayPal - Pay zero processing fees on your first $100K in eligible PayPal payment volume. Learn more at 3:11 Why enterprises are getting token shock 4:23 Can you trust the frontier labs with your data 7:06 Why companies want to own their AI stack 8:56 How close are open models to the frontier? 11:57 Running real AI work on your own desk 15:14 The Goldilocks zone and unmetered AI 25:12 Decision models that replace code 29:32 Who makes money when everything gets commoditized 33:19 Why every enterprise is building its own router 35:56 Can you depend on the frontier labs 42:37 Sentient being or powerful software 43:57 Open models, security, and the Hugging Face hack 🎥 Watch the full episode here 👇

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Does Gemini 4 Argon put Google back on the AI frontier? Early tests suggest it gets close to Opus 5.5 quality for a fraction of the cost. Find out more in our Substack. Link in comments.

We break down a viral Claude cost hack in our TWiAI Substack. Link in the comments.

Anthropic shipped a number of Claude tools this week. Dashboards emerged as the biggest shift for enterprises, but most of the social media and YouTube buzz from testers and builders was focused on Claude Motion. We break it down in our Substack. Link in comments.

The OpenAI Decisions API has CHALLENGED viral upstart Jev. Find out who wins in a head-to-head match-up. Substack link in comments.